Authors:Constantin VicăPages: 3 - 8Abstract: We live the exciting times of transformative technologies. They are not mere instruments or neutral tools, simply operative; in fact, they reshape human practices in radical ways. Our aim with this special issue is to tackle the advent of new and emerging technologies using innovative ethical compasses. The diversity of approaches and problems to be found in this issue comes naturally from the plurality of these technologies as well as from the numerous ethical views competing to substantiate their moral assessment. The question is not only what moral impact these technologies could have upon humans (and not only humans), but also how our moral intuitions and dispositions are dictating responses to phenomena elicited by new technologies.PubDate: 2018-02-14Issue No:Vol. 66, No. 2 (2018)

Authors:Julian SavulescuPages: 9 - 24Abstract:Technological doping, like using gears in cycling, aerohelmets, or computers, shows us that doping can assist the human striving to be better. It can express and bring out talent. Our rules to limit enhancement needs to be based on the balance of reasons. Sport, and life, ought to preserve 4 values: • safety; • preservation of: o a test of human contribution or human element (spirit of sport), o costly commitment - effort, time, mixing one’s labour with the activity (work), o the mind and authentic persona of the athlete: strategy, dispositions, personality. Technological doping shows that we need to think carefully about the values which really matter when we choose to interfere in autonomy and liberty, and restrict the development of human performance.PubDate: 2018-02-14Issue No:Vol. 66, No. 2 (2018)

Authors:Koji TachibanaPages: 25 - 41Abstract: Some skeptics question the very possibility of moral bioenhancement by arguing that if we lack a widely acceptable notion of morality, we will not be able to accept the use of a biotechnological technique as a tool for moral bioenhancement. I will examine this skepticism and argue that the assessment of moral bioenhancement does not require such a notion of morality. In particular, I will demonstrate that this skepticism can be neutralized in the case of recent neurofeedback techniques. This goal will be accomplished in four steps. First, I will draw an outline of the skepticism against the possibility of moral bioenhancement and point out that a long-lasting dispute among moral philosophers nourishes this skepticism. Second, I will survey recent neurofeedback techniques and outline their three features: the variety of the target human faculties, such as emotion, cognition, and behavior; the flexibility or personalizability of the target brain state; and the nonclinical application of neurofeedback techniques. Third, I will argue that, by virtue of these three unique features, neurofeedback techniques can be a tool for moral bioenhancement without adopting any specific notion of morality. Fourth, I will examine the advantages andthreats that neurofeedback-based moral enhancement may have. Finally, I will conclude that neurofeedback-based moral enhancement can become a new and promising tool for moral bioenhancement and requires further ethical investigations on its unique features.PubDate: 2018-02-14Issue No:Vol. 66, No. 2 (2018)

Authors:Fiona J. McEvoyPages: 43 - 66Abstract: Members of the general public may think that terms like ‘Big Data’ are only of relevance to technology geeks and Silicon Valley executives. The reality is that so-called “datafication” marks the beginning of a new human epoch that will have huge implications for all of us – especially generations being born right now. Understanding the ethics of tech has never been more critical than it is today, and any comprehensive analysis should have one of the most apparent challenges right at its core: what Big Data means for our personal autonomy. Some commentators have already expressed nervousness. They are concerned that data-driven technology could lead to the erosion some of our human capacities as we relinquish more and more of our decision-making to computers.This paper attempts to frame this emerging concern, before articulating three ways in which an increasing emphasis on Big Data seems to threaten our basic liberty. I identify these as: i) data overload and automation, ii) feedback loops and manipulation, and iii) types and prejudice. I will then argue that, although these factors undoubtedly present a challenge to aspects of our decision-making (and so ethical concerns aren’t entirely misplaced), human autonomy itself is not in danger of being significantly destabilized. Rather, the rapid shift in perspective that characterizes this new era of data, intelligence and mass connectivity simply demands that we reimagine the objects, but not the conditions, of agent autonomy. I will suggest ways in which we might mitigate some of the more pernicious aspects of these developments, before ultimately concluding that new attitudes and new opportunities for decision-making are actually counteractively extending the domain of the autonomous human agent in positive ways.PubDate: 2018-02-14Issue No:Vol. 66, No. 2 (2018)

Authors:Mihail-Valentin CerneaPages: 67 - 89Abstract: This paper is concerned with evaluating the arguments given to support the prohibition of autonomous weapon systems (AWS). I begin by offering a definition ofautonomous weapons systems, focusing on the kind of autonomy involved by this type of combat robots. I continue by exploring Ronald Arkin’s main arguments for ethical advantages in warfare that could be gained by the development and use of AWS (larger change of real world conflicts to actually comply with the international laws of war). The main part of the paper is dedicated to appraising what kinds of prohibition the international community can impose on such advanced weaponized robots and the kinds of arguments given by the proponents of such a ban. I propose a threefold classification of the arguments: epistemic, consequentialist and deontological. Of these three types of arguments, I argue that deontological arguments are the weakest, given the fact that their requirements are not satisfied by most weapons employed in war and that consequentialist arguments are more convincing if we are to ban the development ofAWS. Regarding epistemic arguments and the legal arguments based upon them, they can be used to prohibit the use of AWS, but they seem to be neutral regarding the elaboration of these Artificial Intelligence based warfare technologies.PubDate: 2018-02-14Issue No:Vol. 66, No. 2 (2018)

Authors:Marcello IencaPages: 91 - 115Abstract: Machine ethics is the branch of ethics concerned with the behavior of artificially intelligent systems. Cyborg ethics is the related field of investigation concerned with the ethics of human-machine hybrid systems. While these areas of ethical investigation are experiencing rapid growth urged by disruptive advances in artificial intelligence, robotics and human-machine interaction, yet their theoretical foundations continue to elude consensus among researchers. In fact, most attention in machine and cyborg ethics has been devoted to normative and applied ethical questions concerning the moral status of artificially intelligent systems, the moral permissibility of their application in specific contexts, and the normative principles governing the interaction between artificially intelligent systems and humans. While cyborg ethicists have discussed the ethical implications of integrating man and machines, machine ethicists have long debated on whether artificially intelligent systems have the cognitive capacities necessary for the attribution of moral status. It remains unexplored, however, what theory of cognition is best placed to explain and assess these cognitive capacities or competent actions, especially in relation to human-machine interaction. This contribution aims at harmonizing the theoretical foundations of, respectively, machine and cyborg ethics and argues that an externalist account of cognitionbased on the notion of extended mind might offer a valid substrate for such harmonization.PubDate: 2018-02-14Issue No:Vol. 66, No. 2 (2018)

Authors:Stephen HudsonPages: 117 - 135Abstract: This essay uses the “capability approach” to evaluate emerging technologies. It argues that the proper application of the capability approach can deflate misguided moral intuitions and ensure the ethical use of key emerging technologies. First, an outline is given of the ways in which the capability approach can be uniquely helpful in normative assessment. Two key examples of emerging technologies are then provided, and this normative framework is applied to their possible use in advancing development and global justice. It is concluded that the right application of the capability approach can provide a rational yet dynamic ethical evaluation of emerging technologies to increase human well-being.PubDate: 2018-02-14Issue No:Vol. 66, No. 2 (2018)

Authors:Harald StelzerPages: 137 - 163Abstract: Climate engineering (CE) research and possible deployment raise many important ethical, societal, and political issues. Intuitions play an important role on howthese questions are perceived. They not only inform many of the arguments that are currently dominating the philosophical debate but also link our normative evaluation of CE to certain background assumptions related to the underlying perception of the existing social, political, and economic order. Even though these problems and challenges shape our understanding of CE, they are too broad to inform a more detailed evaluation of specific options. It will be argued that the way forward needs to be more nuanced, based on interdisciplinary research of different CE options and their potential negative as well as positive impacts. After discussing some of the problems and philosophical assumptions of such an approach, the paper will draft an evaluative framework that could guide the normative assessment of specific CE options and place it within the interdisciplinary research landscape. Special emphasis will be given to questions of justice.PubDate: 2018-02-14Issue No:Vol. 66, No. 2 (2018)

Authors:Shunzo MajimaPages: 165 - 179Abstract: The purpose of this article is to examine the moral (im)permissibility of terrorism and suicide attacks from the perspective of war ethics. On the one hand, terrorism in general is hardly morally justifiable, but it could be permissible – theoretically at least – under exceptional circumstances where a specific set of criteria for justification is met. In reality, however, actual cases of terrorism, past or present, that are considered morally permissible are hard to find. On the other hand, the moral (im)permissibility of suicide attacks may be determined primarily by the jus in bello (justice in war) criterion of just war theory, which is one of the dominant approaches in the field of war ethics. Jus in bello proposes a general rule (the so-called ‘principle of distinction’) that prohibits attackersfrom targeting civilians and civilian objects. At the same time, however, it also propose an exceptional rule (the ‘principle of proportionality in means’) that allows collateral damage to civilians and civilian objects if a given attack is solely aimed at combatants and military objects, and if any damage to civilians and civilian objects is unintentional and proportionate to the military gains the attack brings. I conclude by arguing that terrorism by its nature is hardly ever morally justifiable, whereas a suicide attack solely aimed at military targets could potentially be permissible under certain conditions.PubDate: 2018-02-14Issue No:Vol. 66, No. 2 (2018)

Authors:Radu UszkaiPages: 181 - 205Abstract: The moral analysis of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) has been dominated in the past couple of decades by American and Anglo-Saxon academic literature. As a result, great weight has been given to either utilitarian or Lockean natural rights justifications for copyrights and patents. The purpose of my article is that of expanding the current debate by critically taking into account the personhood theory of Intellectual Property. My first objective is defining IPRs and providing a conceptual ethical map of the arguments in favor of them, highlighting the particular place occupied by the personhood theory. I proceed to reconstruct the Kantian and Hegelian arguments in favor of a system of copyrights and patents. The main part of the paper is dedicated to a series of problematic aspects of this approach in justifying copyrights and patents. If my arguments are correct, then it would be legitimate to cast some doubt on this approach and maybe employ personhood arguments in relation to other aspects of artistic and scientific creation. My paper ends with such a normative proposal.PubDate: 2018-02-14Issue No:Vol. 66, No. 2 (2018)

Authors:Toni GibeaPages: 207 - 225Abstract: Three million Romanians signed a petition to organize a referendum in order to specify in the Constitution that a family should be formed only through the consensual marriage between a wife and a husband, not two spouses, as the Constitution states at this moment. This fuelled in the media an intense discussion that relied mainly on intuitively evaluating the subject-matter. The objective of this article is to advance a proposal for an empirical study where Romanians’ moral intuitions regarding same-sex couple rights (partnership rights, adoption, marital rights so on and so forth) could be rationally taken into account in a debate. In order to achieve this goal, I argue in the second section how intuitions can be rationally taken into account in experimental ethics by systematically examining them within designed experiments or empirical studies. I will then briefly summarize the already existing data on same-sex couple rights from other countries and illustrate how it might also be used in Romania’s case. The fourth section contains a brief proposal of an empirical study composed of an experimental task (it varies the words “marriage” and “partnership” and the parenting right) and two correlational tasks (sensitivity to disgust and trust).PubDate: 2018-02-14Issue No:Vol. 66, No. 2 (2018)

Authors:John FarinaPages: 227 - 238Abstract: Religion plays a vital role in civil society today that finds warrants in Plato and in the political theories of Guissepe Mazzini. The process by which religion enters a culture is not a simple one in which the sacred and the secular are opposed but a dynamic process, suggested by the legend of Tarasque.PubDate: 2018-02-14Issue No:Vol. 66, No. 2 (2018)